Man, this dome is such a problem! People getting sick, people going crazy... when are we going to fi- hey, wait a minute....hold on... ok, ok...new idea: When they shoot the dome, it reflects and kills people. If they shoot people, maybe it'll reflect and kill the dome.

OR: they could stop referring to it as a dome, which it clearly hates, and instead just call the area beneath it the rotunda. Much classier.

Man, this dome is such a problem! People getting sick, people going crazy... when are we going to fi- hey, wait a minute....hold on... ok, ok...new idea: When they shoot the dome, it reflects and kills people. If they shoot people, maybe it'll reflect and kill the dome.

OR: they could stop referring to it as a dome, which it clearly hates, and instead just call the area beneath it the rotunda. Much classier.

I loved the book this was all based on but I might have to finally watch this show because of these jokes...

I couldn't help but think of you during the last episode, batman. They probably used the word "dome" a good twenty times, and the phrase "before the dome came down" three or four. Funniness. I feel like I'm going to have to keep watching this just for amusement's sake.

Speaking of bad Stephen King TV series, anyone see Storm of the Century years ago? It was actually almost good...

Anyone else watch Top Shot? This newest season is sort of an interesting change of pace; they've brought back some of the better shooters from previous seasons who didn't wind up winning. They've also completely eliminated teams and the nomination range, which effectively completely removes the whole alliance/politics/bullying aspect of the show which was present in some extent in the first four seasons and which has always been a mainstay of this sort of reality show. It's actually kind of neat to see them embrace a fully skills-based competition.

The bummer, though, is that maybe 3/4 of the contestants this time around are people who I liked a lot from previous seasons, so it's going to get into that whole "awww, poor dude I liked got eliminated" mode much earlier this time. There were already some scares and I'm only two episodes in.

Oh shit, I totally forgot to mention: Under the Dome has one of the shittiest intros I've ever seen. "Let me narrate to you in a flaccid voice the synopsis of our show over an arbitrary melange of shots from the first episode. Are you interested yet? Hopefully by the time I finish speaking you will be."

Yeah, what's up with that? Falling Skies also doesn't really have an intro - there's just a title card that pops up after the intro scene. I think Revolution did the exact same thing, too. Get a good intro, people! Dexter knows what's up in that regard.

I heard Falling Skies was shit, as well as Terra Nova. Along with Under the Dome, Spielberg definitely seems to be producing a whole lot of shite these days. Not that I have much faith in the man, but god...

Anyway, I'm more of a fan of the minimal intro. I don't really like intros in my shows (unless we're talking about Game of Thrones ). I much prefer the LOST type of intro...short, minimalist, and to the point. Every second that's wasted on intro could be being used on precious show. Hannibal's got a pretty neat intro, though, I don't mind that at all. Treme and The Wire were perfect examples of what to not ever do with an intro.

Yeah, what's up with that? Falling Skies also doesn't really have an intro - there's just a title card that pops up after the intro scene. I think Revolution did the exact same thing, too. Get a good intro, people! Dexter knows what's up in that regard.

Revolution used an intro for at least some of its episodes. There was that voiceover that said "We lived in an electric world. We relied on it for everything. Then one day, the power went out. That sucked."

And sure, I used to dig Dexter's intro. But like the show as a whole, I'm kind of sick of it after eight seasons.

I wish they had changed the intro to Dexter by season 3. There's only so many times I can watch Dexter eat the same breakfast in slow motion with that quirky upbeat theme. I think a new intro relating to the serial killer for each season is what the show was lacking among other small things. Despite my best efforts it's hard to brush off the repetitive nature of the series.

Last edited by volutetheswarth on Tue Jul 16, 2013 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What about Revolution? I haven't heard too much about that either way.

Are you asking if the show is good or if it hasn't been cancelled? There's been a bit of chatter in this thread about it, needless to say the reason no one is talking about it is because it's bad. I can't fathom why it hasn't been cancelled.

Revolution is meh at best. It has a vaguely interesting premise but pretty much none of the characters are very good. Shit, they even fucked up their one good villain character by about halfway through the season. It also had a lot of really dumb plot elements that continued to rub me the wrong way the whole time. Why are muskets the most plentiful gun fifteen years in the future? Why does our posse of badass heroes get ambushed multiple times per episode?

And yeah, Falling Skies is pretty bad, too. I keep watching it mainly because it's got great production values, so whenever there are battle scenes it's sorta neat. Same deal, though: none of the characters are really all that great, the writing gets corny, dumb plot devices are not only introduced but waved around in your face, etc.

Now that I think about it, all of the shows I really like from this "New Golden Age of TV" or whatever are now in their fourth seasons or older, or have ended. I can't really think of any really compelling shows that have popped up more recently than that.

Speaking of bad Stephen King TV series, anyone see Storm of the Century years ago? It was actually almost good...

I liked that one, was stupid and cheesy, sure, but it was a lot of fun despite being ungodly long. I'll have to revisit it now and see what my new, more critical self thinks...

I'm watching Twin Peaks. It's cool...interesting blend of weird comedy, surrealism at times (just touches so far) and hard-nosed detective stuff. It really captures the essence of a small town I think. There's something very personal and genuine in it. Kyle McLachlan is excellent...I really, really like his Agent Cooper. Stellar character.

The second season did pick up towards the end, once Lynch had rejoined the creative team. But yeah, the spark that made season one so marvelous is all but extinguished after the first three or four episodes of season two.

But yeah, the first season is pretty much the pinnacle of TV--at least early 90's TV.

Yeah, Twin Peaks...I had mixed feelings about it. By about 2/3 of the way through the show it seemed like it had gone so far up its own creek that it didn't have much to really offer and didn't know where the hell it was even going anymore. I'm not even going to pretend that the plot made any actual sense. After a while I was just kind of...watching the show happen as opposed to being very engaged in it. Which is sort of how I feel about a lot of Lynch's projects. It's usually always interesting and makes me curious, but whether or not I honestly give an actual fuck about it is debatable. Strange dynamic.

Oh my god, the second season after Larua's case was solved was just so bad though. Audrey's shoehorned-in romantic interest was fucking terrible, they basically changed her entire character so she could fall in love with Characterless McHandsomedouche. And then that whole subplot with James getting hired by the rich couple? Who CARES

Really the problem with the second season was that they had introduced like half the characters because they were involved with Laura - her high school peers, her psychologist, her mom and dad, and all their extended relations. As soon as the Laura case wrapped up, we were left with a bunch of characters who suddenly lacked even a tenuous connection to the central plot. Not only that, most of them were just regular people whose regular lives were only strange and interesting precisely because of the Laura case. James, Bobby, Audrey, and Donna were all essentially normal high school students who had maybe one or two things of their own going on the side, but none of them were enough to support a whole subplot.

Basically, for Season 2 to have worked, they would have had to essentially ditch all the characters who no longer had any relevance to the main plot, and introduce new ones to take their places.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

I've also heard a lot of praise about the season 2 finale, but I didn't really like it too much. It was cool in certain ways but really dragged on/didn't impress me in more ways still. It seemed rehashed, and didn't really terrify me in the way I felt it should've. Don't take my word for it, though; the episode is apparently much-loved by most of the fandom.

I liked the last episode but I think part of the problem was that the season just didn't build toward it well at all. Instead of building tons of tension for the supernatural confrontation, it just seemed kind of out of nowhere.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Well, Lynch's original plan was to have the Laura Palmer case never really get solved. David Frost on the other hand felt that they owed it to the audience to actually solve it. Unfortunately, Frost didn't really seem to have anything to follow it up with.

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MorbidBlood wrote:

So the winner is Destruction and Infernal Overkill is the motherfucking skullcrushing poserkilling satan-worshiping 666 FUCK YOU greatest german thrash record.

Well, Lynch's original plan was to have the Laura Palmer case never really get solved. David Frost on the other hand felt that they owed it to the audience to actually solve it. Unfortunately, Frost didn't really seem to have anything to follow it up with.

Mark Lynch and David Frost, huh? While I sorta liked some of the stuff that led to the solving of Laura's case - Some of the scenes were very effective, it would've been better if it hadn't. But in general, I'm in agreement that while I did enjoy the second season as well, it wasn't nearly as good as the first one. Also, talking about intros, Twin Peaks's is pretty much unparalleled. The superbly somber theme music of Badamenti with the somber images of a calm, scenic town. Also, the population count on the welcome sign is always worth a chuckle.

Replace Falling Skies with Orphan Black for me. I made it to the car chase with the laughable German woman. It's just Le Femme Nikita slightly rearranged with a gimmick, all the characters are irritating at best and the whole rags to riches premise is so cliche and tiresome. Nothing remarkable and truly undeserving of more episodes let alone a full season.

Yeah, volute, seems like you jumped to some weird assumptions there based on the first episode... The show does have its foibles, sure, but it's far from unoriginal and I'm sure that would become obvious after a couple more episodes. I suggest you give it a second chance, even if only to witness Tatiana Maslany's Swiss Army Knife-like acting display.

Orphan Black isn't the greatest TV show of the last half-decade, but it is the greatest sci-fi TV show of the last half-decade. The first episode is a fun thriller with a kickass pace and smart dialog... but admittedly not exactly brimming with substance; the showrunners chose to kick their show off with a bang rather than an encyclopedia, which I normally find sort of annoying but I thought worked great here. You shouldn't jump to conclusions after just the first episode, though, because it very shortly (I believe by the third episode) begins unraveling its own mythology, which is probably the show's most laudable feature and second most defining characteristic (the first being the many talents of the wonderful Tatiana, obvz.)

volutetheswarth wrote:

It's just Le Femme Nikita slightly rearranged with a gimmick

What The Actual Fuck

Are you referring to Besson's Nikita or that suck-ass dime-store USATV in-name-only cash-in Le Femme Nikita? I guess it doesn't really matter much because I've seen both and they're about as similar to Orphan Black as Morrigan is to a Hasidic Jew. I mean, yeah, they both center around espionage/international intrigue and feature a gaunt woman (often clad in revealing attire) who can kick an enormous amount of ass... but you can say that about a whole fuckton of TV shows and movies, especially of the past 15 years. Apparently Alias is also a Nikita rip-off? Who knew. JJ should cut a check out to Besson ASAP. Let's not forget James Cameron, because Dark Angel certainly smacks of knock-off as well. Honey West should wire its check to 25 years in the future.

Don't listen to them volutetheswarth, you will not get all those hours you lost watching that try-hard show back. I showed a couple of episodes to my chick and she got hooked on it. I still gave it a chance but now we're two episodes from finishing the season and I am still waiting for something to happen. I could've finished it a long time ago but I found better use of my time checking out other shows instead. My chick says I probably don't like it because it's mostly about girls or this girl. I don't know, I just think the writing and acting are so and the characters so damn cheesy. Also, it doesn't help that the show has Matt Frewer as Dr. Aldous Leekie whose voice and acting I've always found highly annoying. He reminds me of that wimpering Skeksi in The Dark Crystal.

I'm glad you guys brought this show up. I hadn't even heard of it but it sounds pretty interesting. As you know I don't have much nice to say about a lot of the current crop of sci-fi TV shows* so it could maybe fill that void. I think the last decent sci-fi I watched was BSG some years ago, and that wasn't even really very good (in fact, lots of it was downright bad, but at least it was entertaining for the most part).

*Did I mention I tried watching that Sci-Fi (excuse me, SyFy) show that's about a really boring alien invasion that has an MMO tie-in or something? I can't even remember what it was called. Anyway, it was really stupid and I think I turned off the pilot about halfway through.

And then that whole subplot with James getting hired by the rich couple? Who CARES

Ugh, that was AWFUL. It's actually a toss up for which was the worst subplot; Joise being Catherine's maid and then for some reason ending up stuck in a drawer? Andy and Dick Tremaine vying for the effection of that pissy little foster child? Ben Horne going insane and acting out some Civil War fantasy? UGH.

I think the problem was that the show might have survived without the impetus of Laura's death, but they clearly had no idea where to go. Different writers just threw ideas at the screen hoping they would stick. It's really a shame since season 1 and a bit of season 2 was absolutely fantastic. I do quite like the last few episodes though. I think if they had used Windom Earle more effectively and built the main arc more around white lodge/black lodge stuff it could have been a much better season.

Oh, fun fact: Richard Beymer (Ben Horne) and Russ Tamblyn (Dr. Jacoby) starred together in West Side Story as Riff and Tony. It’s kinda weird seeing clips of them sing out together after watching Twin Peaks.

at some of you wagging your tails for Orphan Black. I just saw the season finale. The fuck did I just see? The View? Even my chick had to admit this is like a Sci-Fi Desperate Housewives. Still she loves it and made me hush everytime I interrupted to spew some hate at all the preposterous crap. Are you kidding me? Art's gotta be the greatest detective I've ever seen.